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I almost wasn't going to post this given that 2 weeks in 2020 is equivalent to 2 years of normal-time and things have moved along a lot since mid-March, but it is (somehow) still relevant. Back before the case numbers really skyrocketed, and the US and UK went into their own meltdowns, the big issue was that $2.2 trillion-with-a-T had been dumped into the dumpster fire that was the stock markets at the time, with the overall effect of a 20 minute bump in stock prices and no real-world impact. Turns out money is fake and we can just type in a bigger number and the only reason we as a society can't do utopian things like guarantee housing and healthcare for all for free is "just cos".
Good to know.

Luckily places like Canada, the UK, Denmark, France, and others have taken action to put money directly in people's pockets, with Canada and Denmark subsidising wages of impacted companies to the tune of 75%, and 80% in the UK, and Canada enacting a new emergency benefit of $2000 a month for those who've lost their jobs due to COVID-19. The current projection for Canada is that social distancing will likely have to be the rule well into summer, although we can try hoping that that's an overestimate. Nova Scotia's cases have gone up by a steady 20-a-day average over the last 6 days - not exactly the exponential growth witnessed in BC, Ontario, or countries like the US and UK - so hopefully the early decisive action here will keep us from getting hit too hard.

I currently work at a bank, and my wife works at a drug store, and our roommate works in food service - so we're all still in work, and me n the Mrs have actually had pay rises, so we seem to have lucked out on the whole "economy crashing down around us" thing.

Still, this year is probably going to be entirely shaped by COVID and it's fallout - and from what remains when we can finally stop hiding, perhaps there are some good ideas and lessons that we can try to take away. Not having healthcare access linked to employment or immigration status, recognising that people who lose their incomes still have a right and a need to a dignified standard of living that should be guaranteed, realising that building certain national or provincial economies solely around a single natural resource is not tenable in a world that not only has more oil than it needs but that has to get off of oil for it's own survival is -perhaps - a bad idea.

Description
I almost wasn't going to post this given that 2 weeks in 2020 is equivalent to 2 years of normal-time and things have moved along a lot since mid-March, but it is (somehow) still relevant. Back before the case numbers really skyrocketed, and the US and UK went into their own meltdowns, the big issue was that $2.2 trillion-with-a-T had been dumped into the dumpster fire that was the stock markets at the time, with the overall effect of a 20 minute bump in stock prices and no real-world impact. Turns out money is fake and we can just type in a bigger number and the only reason we as a society can't do utopian things like guarantee housing and healthcare for all for free is "just cos".
Good to know.

Luckily places like Canada, the UK, Denmark, France, and others have taken action to put money directly in people's pockets, with Canada and Denmark subsidising wages of impacted companies to the tune of 75%, and 80% in the UK, and Canada enacting a new emergency benefit of $2000 a month for those who've lost their jobs due to COVID-19. The current projection for Canada is that social distancing will likely have to be the rule well into summer, although we can try hoping that that's an overestimate. Nova Scotia's cases have gone up by a steady 20-a-day average over the last 6 days - not exactly the exponential growth witnessed in BC, Ontario, or countries like the US and UK - so hopefully the early decisive action here will keep us from getting hit too hard.

I currently work at a bank, and my wife works at a drug store, and our roommate works in food service - so we're all still in work, and me n the Mrs have actually had pay rises, so we seem to have lucked out on the whole "economy crashing down around us" thing.

Still, this year is probably going to be entirely shaped by COVID and it's fallout - and from what remains when we can finally stop hiding, perhaps there are some good ideas and lessons that we can try to take away. Not having healthcare access linked to employment or immigration status, recognising that people who lose their incomes still have a right and a need to a dignified standard of living that should be guaranteed, realising that building certain national or provincial economies solely around a single natural resource is not tenable in a world that not only has more oil than it needs but that has to get off of oil for it's own survival is -perhaps - a bad idea.